There are years when a household reaches December with a spring in its step, and there are years when it simply limps across the line. A job lost in March. A roof repair that swallowed the savings. A grandmother buried in the summer, and a chair at the table that nobody quite knows what to do with. The house still stands. The lights still come on, mostly. But nobody feels much like celebrating.
At times like that, the familiar year-end rituals can feel hollow, even a little dishonest. The cheerful cards, the relatives asking “So how was your year?”, the church service where everybody is invited to testify to God’s blessings. It is tempting either to put on a brave face or to skip the whole thing.
There is a third way, and it is very old.
A song for an empty storehouse
The prophet Habakkuk lived through a frightening time. His short book opens with complaint: he asks God how long injustice will go unchecked, and he does not like the answer he receives. By the final chapter he is trembling at what is coming. And yet he ends with one of the most defiant songs in Scripture:
“Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food; though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls — yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” (Habakkuk 3:17-18, NKJV)
Notice what he lists. Not abstract troubles, but the concrete signs of a household’s security in his day: the fruit trees, the harvest, the animals in the pen. The storehouse is empty. He does not pretend otherwise. His joy is not in the stock of the house but in the God of the house.
That distinction matters. Gratitude that depends on everything going well is fragile. It disappears the first time the tank runs dry. Gratitude anchored in who God is can survive a year in which almost nothing went to plan.
Honest thanks is not forced cheerfulness
It is worth saying clearly: praising God in a hard year does not mean refusing to grieve, or telling a widowed aunt that she should be more positive, or treating an unpaid bill as a failure of faith. Habakkuk’s song comes after two chapters of honest wrestling. The psalms are full of laments that sit right beside hymns of praise. The two belong together.
In a home, this might look like letting each person say what was hard about the year before anybody is asked what they are thankful for. It might mean lighting a candle, or setting out a photograph, for the person who is missing. It might mean admitting to the children that money has been tight and that the parents have been worried, while also telling them how God has provided day by day.
Small practices for a lean December
Families find different ways to mark the end of a hard year. A few that many households have found helpful:
- A walk through the house. Go room by room and name one thing that happened there this year worth giving thanks for. The bedroom where a sick child recovered. The kitchen where church sisters brought food after the funeral. The verandah where a hard conversation finally happened.
- A “still” list. Write down what is still true despite everything: we still have each other, we still have a roof, the Lord is still faithful. Stick it on the fridge for January.
- A thank-you to someone outside the family. The neighbour who ran the extension cord across during the outage. The deacon who helped with the roof. A note or a plate of food is a way of turning private relief into shared gratitude.
- A modest table. A hard year is not the time to borrow for a lavish Christmas. A simple meal, eaten together with thanks, can mean far more.
What the house remembers
Consider a family that went through a year of real loss: a father’s illness, a business that closed, a move to a smaller rented place across town. On the last evening of the year, they sit on borrowed chairs in a living room still half full of boxes. Nobody gives a speech. The mother reads Habakkuk’s song aloud, and her voice catches on the line about the empty stalls. The youngest asks why they are giving thanks when everything was so bad. The father, still weak, answers: “Because we’re still here, and He was with us in every one of those days.”
Years later, when the family’s situation has turned around, that is the evening the children remember. Not the good years with the big dinners, but the lean one when their parents chose to give thanks anyway. Homes absorb what is practised in them. A household that learns to praise in a hard season passes on something no inheritance can buy.
Into the new year
Gratitude at the end of a hard year is not a formula for guaranteeing a better one. Next year may bring its own troubles. But it does change the ground we stand on as we walk into it. Habakkuk’s song finishes with a picture of God making his feet like the feet of a deer, able to walk on the heights (Habakkuk 3:19). Not a smooth road, but sure footing on a rough one. For a weary household in December, that may be enough.
Follow Jamaica Homes on Youtube @jamaicahomes and Instagram @jamaica_homes and on Facebook @jamaicahomesnews Send us a message or email us at onlinefeedback@jamaica-homes.com or editor@jamaica-homes.com
Visit our YouTube Community ↗